by Standerinfamilycourt
And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. – Hebrews 9:27-28
On Wednesday, May 1, 2019, divorce law reformers were again in front of the Texas House of Representatives, testifying in an effort to get the repeal of unilateral (non-consensual) “no-fault” grounds to advance from that committee, a bill identical to the one that had been voted out of the same committee two years before, whereupon that bill died a mysterious death before it could be brought to the floor of the full house for a vote, and before the legislature adjourned for two years. This time, related bills under discussion, HB922 and HB926 occupied about an hour of the late evening 3-hour session for testimony, while one bill seeking to protect wedding officiants from (homosexualist) liability by allowing them to recuse themselves, where conscience before God would be violated, (HB2109) preceded this debate and took more than 90 minutes of that time. During the discussion of the supposedly “homophobic” recusal bill, one recently-elected millennial lawmaker from a district north of Austin responded to the testimony of Cecilia Wood, a family law attorney of 32 years, there to testify in support of HB922 eliminating non-consensual “no-fault” grounds for divorce, but also a supporter of the right to recuse from officiating weddings based on religious conscience, as follows (@ 8:30):
Rep. Talarico: “Two comments and a question: of course, allusion to the civil war (sic) important, but there was also a right side to that war and a wrong side to that war. Second, you mentioned Christians staying home. There are many Christians on this dias, including me who don’t hold discriminatory beliefs….”
“Woke” social justice writers like Ms. Held are largely responsible for the extrabiblical notions of young Mr. Talarico and too many of his generation:
(1) Belief that one can be a follower of Christ without embracing and obeying His teachings on morality and sexual ethics, as plainly described in the bible – both on a homosexual and heterosexual basis.
(2) The belief that biblically-immoral sexual behavior choices can constitute an “immutable” identity which can then be parlayed into valid comparisons with the civil rights movement of the 1860’s and 1960’s that were based on race, biological sex and religion, i.e. “a right side to that war and a wrong side to that war…” to pass prudent moral selectivity off as “discrimination”. (It should be noted, however, that homosexualism is quickly becoming a sect of the larger secular humanist de facto state-religion of the United States ruling political class.)
(3) The asserted moral superiority of “social justice” Christianity over a holiness-based discipleship that better comports with the full teachings of Christ, the apostles and the early church fathers, especially in the area of sexual ethics. The fact remains that this humanist pseudo-religion is the very antithesis of actual Christian discipleship in every respect.
(4) That false analogies (in general) are excusable for the greater “good”.
To this last point, a woman’s purported “right” to disobey Christ (such as by divorcing her husband in a pagan civil court) is obscenely compared with Martha’s sister, Mary choosing to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from Him, in the RHE illustration we’ve opened this post with.
While this testimony was occurring in Austin, TX, another kind of eternal tragedy was occurring in Tennessee in the Evans household, a covenant holy matrimony union of 16 years, with two children.
Dan and Rachel Evans wedding, 2003
The news site, AL.com wrote on April 19: “During treatment for an infection, Rachel began exhibiting unexpected symptoms. Doctors found that her brain was experiencing constant seizures. She is currently in the ICU. She is in a medically induced coma while the doctors work to determine the cause and solution…” By May 1, her condition was deteriorating due to brain-swelling after she failed to come out of the coma. As reported by CNN: “…Over the next 10 days and transfers between three facilities, Evans was comatose. Doctors began weaning Evans off coma medication Tuesday, but she did not return to an alert state during this process…Thursday [the coincidental date of the committee vote in Texas], Evans had ‘sudden and extreme’ changes in her vitals. A medical team found “extensive swelling of her brain” and took emergency action”.
That emergency action was unavailing, and she died on Saturday, May 4. Out of respect for the Evans family and their grieving process, we will be publishing this blog a day or two after her funeral.
This is the sort of dias-sitting “Christians” that Rep. Talarico was referring to in his hearing remarks were, no doubt, influenced in great measure by the evangelical darling of CNN, the Huffington Post, and a host of other liberal publications, secular and evangelical. SIFC has a grown, married daughter four years older than Mrs. Evans, who also started adopting RHE’s views around the time her writings gained prominence on CNN, and quoting similar homosexuality-sympathizing “Christian” writers such as Jen Hatmaker. This tragedy hits very close to home for that reason. It’s normal for young adults who have been raised in Christian homes to go through a season of questioning, but in these evil last days, it can be eternally fatal to purchase a home there (and turn it into a real estate office, as RHE did, with the backing of crooked investors). Hopefully, SIFC’s daughter is “just renting”, and moves to a home with a Rock foundation in time.
Mrs. Evans joined Soros-funded Baptist feminists (Karen Swallow-Prior, Beth Moore and an acclaimed homosexual journalist) in the leftist smearing of Rev. Paige Patterson, resulting in his removal from his leadership posts in the Southern Baptist Convention last year because of his fully biblical anti-divorce views which rejected the morally rabid “abuse” doctrines of this evangelical feminist cult. She was quoted by Baptist News Global at the time: “Patterson’s comments need a swift and thorough rebuke from the SBC and all Christians of good faith.” At least indirectly, Mrs. Evans was the epitome of the “rent-an-evangelical” cadre that Soros operatives openly bragged about recruiting.
The following was typical of her views on man’s divorce, finding purported legal “dissolution” a necessary “right choice” to prevent the exploitation of women, and imagining the true protection of women under the biblical leadership of her husband “legalistic”….rather than the metaphysical impossibility Jesus taught that divorce of an original holy matrimony union actually is. In effect, RHE was a popular writer because she excused hardness of heart, telling her fans what they wanted to hear – at a time when nearly 70% of unilateral “no-fault” divorce petitions are filed by women, and almost nobody takes provable abuse through the criminal justice system, as the bible would instead direct.
Jesus’ words about divorce were intended to protect women who were being exploited by the system. That they have been turned into legalistic laws that often harm women is a tragedy. A marriage is not more sacred than the people in it. Sometimes divorce is the right choice.
— Rachel Held Evans (1981-2019) (@rachelheldevans) April 29, 2018
“…but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
“Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!” – Jesus, Matt. 18:7-8
Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. – Romans 1:32
“standerinfamilycourt” would vigorously challenge the late Mrs. Evans’ assertion about the “purpose of Jesus’ words on marriage”. Rather than protecting women from “exploitation by the system”, those words were to protect society as a whole from self-absorbed individualism, and keep fathers firmly in authority over the generations of their families, per God’s design.
Challenging the authority of scripture on such a matter, and then (apparently) dying unrepentant is very eternally costly, at least according to one early church bishop who was martyred early in the 2nd century….
Meeting this fate while still very young illustrates the extreme danger of achieving broad influence and acclaim which is built on a foundation of sand. It’s a mercy that God sometimes removes high-impact siren voices from our midst. When He must do so while they are so young, it’s a strong sign of how many they were leading astray, and of His foreknowledge of whether they would ever repent. Apparently, Mrs. Evans knew John Stonestreet of the Colson Center (Breakpoint.org) very well because they were from the same town in Tennessee, and (while he can’t quite bring himself to vocalize it), he is wondering if she ever repented before she passed into eternity last week. We can only hope so.
We are bracing for the howl we’re going to get from the antinomians out there, as we did when remarriage adulteress Joey Feek passed away young and unrepentant in her “marriage” to another woman’s legally-estranged husband. That blog post elicited comments from hundreds of people for days. We didn’t write that piece to be “mean” to the divorced-and-remarried, nor will we apologize for reminding people that all of the apostles warned repeatedly about the possibility of wandering away from the faith, as directly evidenced by the levels of repentance, and spirit of obedience to Christ’s commandments, in the life under discussion. If those who would take offense insist on doing so based on extrabiblical denominational dogma, their souls are in their own hands. If the past is any indication, some will read this and insist that SIFC has “judged” and personally consigned these erring souls to hell, as if feeling deputized by God to do so. This is irrational (to be as kind as possible in expressing it). What SIFC has done is tell the audience what God’s word and early church fathers clearly said about similar situations.
“standerinfamilycourt”, as Mrs. Evans did, feels called to the role of a teacher of God’s word on the family, approaching it with a holy fear of God, and ever-mindful of the stern warning from Christ’s brother, James, about the eternal impact on the audience….
“Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. “
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!